Monday, May 26, 2014

In an embarrassing flub, the Obama administration accidentally revealed the name of the CIA's top official in Afghanistan in an email to thousands of journalists during the president's surprise Memorial Day weekend trip to Bagram Air Field.

The officer's name — identified as "chief of station" in Kabul — was included by U.S. embassy staff on a list of 15 senior American officials who met with President Obama during the Saturday visit. The list was sent to a Washington Post reporter who was representing the news media, who then sent it out to the White House "press pool" list, which contains as many as 6,000 recipients.

The Associated Press is withholding the officer's name at the request of the Obama administration, who said its publication could put his life and those of his family members in danger. A Google search appears to reveal the name of the officer's wife and other personal details.

I'm going to guess that nobody's going to get in any trouble for this. Just as nobody at Booz-Allen or the NSA got in trouble for allowing their allegedly sacred treasure trove of documents to be copied by Edward Snowden, without detection.

I remain convinced that one of he gravest dangers in the government collecting all this information on people is the fact that human beings are in charge of keeping them secret. That rarely works out well.

Also too, this odd conclusion to the story:

In 2010, the CIA station chief in Pakistan, Jonathan Bank, was evacuated after local newspapers published his name in connection with a lawsuit, and he was threatened.

The disclosure didn't prevent Bank from landing another sensitive job: He became chief of the Iran operations division at CIA headquarters at Langley. He was removed from that post in March after CIA officials concluded he created a hostile work environment in the division. He has since been detailed to the Pentagon's intelligence arm